Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced on Sunday that he would run for a seventh term ahead of the next presidential election in 2025, after casting his vote in elections to elect members of parliament.
“I will do it, I will do it,” he said when asked by the press at the polling station, adding that he would do “everything that is necessary for Belarus,” although he recalled that “until the presidential election there is still one Year goes by.” According to BelTA news agency, “many things can change”.
He also claimed that the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) observers “did not ask” to take part in the local elections. “If they want, they should come. They should come after the elections,” he argued.
The Belarusian opposition figure Svetlana Tijanovskaya assured this in a video published on the social network
In this sense, he pointed out that it is important to remain “firm” and “not to recognize the legitimacy of these elections and their results”. “The Belarusian people deserve authentic, fair and just elections,” he stressed.
“This alleged election campaign did not meet democratic standards. All political parties not loyal to the regime and independent media have been silenced. All opposition candidates are prohibited from participating,” he specified, recalling that OSCE observers refused to allow them to take part in the elections.
Likewise, he pointed out that the Belarusian people look beyond “this farce, this facade of democracy” and that “it is crucial that the international community does the same.” “I ask you to support Belarus at this critical moment and your “To reaffirm our commitment to the principles of democracy and human rights,” he said.
In early January, the OSCE condemned the Belarusian government’s decision not to invite the organization’s observers, denouncing that this measure contradicted the European country’s international obligations.
Belarusians are being asked to renew various regional and local institutions, with a focus on the 110 seats in the House of Representatives – the lower house of parliament – which are distributed according to a system of single-member constituencies in which the candidate is elected with the who has the most votes, wins.
Lukashenko won a sixth term in August 2020 after defeating Tijanovskaya with 81 percent of the vote, amid a series of protests alluding to alleged fraud to keep the current president, in power since 1994, in power .